Ni Hao Shanghai!

The flight from ORD to PVG (Shanghai) was about 14 hrs long. My anxiety about moving to Shanghai was making it hard for me to get any sleep. I did manage to squander 2 hrs of my life watching a crappy Russell Crowe flick (A Good Year). Other than that I spent the balance of the flight reviewing maps of Shanghai from my Lonely Planet travel guide. My next concern was being able to get from the airport to Jiao Tong Da Xue (University).

We landed around 3:30pm Shanghai time (my flight departed ORD @ 10 ish AM (Shanghai is 14hrs ahead of Chicago). I waited in line at customs for about 45minutes, which is always a fun people watching experience. Most foreigners coming through are other Asians (japanese, SE Asians, Koreans, etc...) then you get a variety of other people (non-asian). No matter what, there is always one loud obnoxious white guy (sadly he is usually American). You can't miss him, he is usually talking loudly on a phone or to a buddy about his China stories (which are most likely exaggerations of the truth).

Throughout the the flight, I had been debating whether or not to take a cab straight to the university for $200 RMB ($1 US = $7.7 RMB) or taking a bus for $19RMB then a cab for about $20RMB. I took a calculated risk and took the bus (#2) to downtown Shanghai. It was about an 1hr ride to downtown Shanghai from the airport. By this time it was about 6pm. I was getting nervous about finding a taxi during rush hour and wasn't sure if the dorm would still be open after hours. After showing a little ankle i was able to hail a cab and make it to the address I had written down. Great Success! I was able save $160RMB, which can either be 1 day or 1 week worth of food.

By the time I arrived on campus the sun was already down and it turns out the address was the address of the university not the dorm room. I spent the next 45 minutes lugging my luggage (about 90lbs) in absolute darkness. Finally I was able to find an old white couple, who then found an English speaking Chinese student who kind of knew where I needed to go. The name of my savior was Wang....Jack Wang. From our 10 min conversation, Jack is studying English at Jiao Tong, but already has his degree in Applied Finance (I majored in non-applicable Finance). He is from Sichuan province (the only thing I know is that they have hot food there) and was looking to work in Australia after improving his English.

I finally checked in with Jack translating for me. Jack and I went our separate ways and I promptly went to check out my living situation for at least the next 5 months.